Post war Britain, in 1920, was (as you might expect with the war having finished only one year before) in a dreadful mess with many of the institutions of the 19th century completely unable to cope with the reality of 3 million men returning from the the battlefields, or with the new industrial militancy by the emboldened work forces, a government still primarily made up of those who had little or no understanding of life for the working classes and a wholesale revolt taking place in Ireland.

The question of supporting the poor became a major issue and late in 1920 there were numerous outbreaks of protest focused around the offices of the Boards of Guardians which administered the support to the impoverished.

Such a demonstration occurred in Fulham at the start of December 1920 in which the offices of the Board was besieged by the unemployed. Companies were of course free to take on whomsoever they wanted and there was a distrust of many of the men who had known little other than warfare for four years – a matter which concerned Sir Henry Norris as one of the local MPs.

He had repeatedly spoken out in favour of lower rail fares (a major issue for commuters from Fulham into the City of London), more house building, equal pay for women do the same jobs as men, and financial support for those returning from war.

Meanwhile against the backdrop of civil unrest, in football the month opened with Arsenal in 9th position.

Pos

Team

P

W

D

L

F

A

GAvg

Pts

1

Burnley

16

10

3

3

33

16

2.063

23

2

Newcastle United

16

10

2

4

33

16

2.063

22

3

Bolton Wanderers

17

8

5

4

33

20

1.650

21

4

Everton

18

7

7

4

27

22

1.227

21

5

Aston Villa

17

9

3

5

31

26

1.192

21

6

Liverpool

16

8

4

4

31

17

1.824

20

7

Middlesbrough

16

8

4

4

24

21

1.143

20

8

Manchester City

16

8

3

5

26

23

1.130

19

9

Arsenal

16

6

6

4

23

19

1.211

18

10

West Bromwich Albion

15

5

7

3

18

19

0.947

17

The first match of the month on 4 December saw King George V (President of the FA) attend the game between Arsenal and Chelsea at Stamford Bridge and was presented to both teams. I suspect Sir Henry Norris was rather pleased about it all especially if his majesty met his Lt Colonel after the match.

Indeed His Majesty was by all accounts a keen watcher of matches, and was regularly to be found at games, in addition to the ones he was obliged to attend such as the FA Cup Final.

Chelsea were currently in 13th, three points behind Arsenal and so the away win for Arsenal was not wholly unexpected although still somewhat unusual as the club had only won one match away from home prior to this date.

The king arrived 20 minutes before kick-off and was presented to all the players in both teams.I suspect he was presented to the directors of the teams either before or after the game – and indeed he would have met Sir Henry at least once before, to give him his knighthood in 1917.

In the game Pagnam scored two goals making it a total of seven goals in the last four games – an extraordinary achievement for a modest scoring club like Arsenal. White had got five in seven in October / November – a good ratio for an inside forward, and Blyth also playing inside forward had got four in six earlier in the season, but no one else was making a significant contribution around this time.

Nevertheless as a result of the win Arsenal were 9th, just four points off the leaders and with a game in hand on three of the clubs above them.

Meanwhile in Scotland, on Sunday 5 December, in a vote that is perhaps hardly remembered now, the country voted against prohibition of alcohol in the country.

On a more mundane level than meeting the king, the following week saw Arsenal’s appeal against its rating assessment. Rates operated in a curious way being based on the notional amount that a tenant might pay if the property were leased or rented out. The higher the rating band that the council could put properties in, the more money it had available to use for council services.

Setting the rates for businesses was a different matter from setting it for private dwellings, since businesses could always threaten to pull out of the council’s area, which would affect local employment, and would enable the business to claim that it would have stayed had the council been more reasonable.

Of course Arsenal were not about to leave Highbury, and the council knew this so were probably trying their luck with a high rating assessment. I have no idea how matters were arranged at this time, but across the years the process became quite farcical with agreements being made on the day before the appeal hearing, on the basis of “if we take you down one level will you withdraw the appeal?” simply to reduce the burden of work on the committee – who as people independent of the local council were on occasion liable to act with a certain amount of caprice. In this case it was agreed that the assessment was too high and a new, lower assessment was agreed to run for five years.

Meanwhile the war in Ireland continued and on 11 December British forces set fire to 20,000 square metres of land in the centre of Cork, including the City Hall, in reprisal for the killing of a British auxiliary in an ambush.

On the same day (11 December) the return match with Chelsea was held, this time with 50,000 in the ground, and it ended in a 1-1 draw, despite very poor weather. It was Arsenal’s 10th game unbeaten although it did mean an end to the run of four consecutive victories Arsenal had just had.

The next game came on 18 December and here, finally, the good run came to an end with the result Bradford City 3 Arsenal 1. What was interesting was that prior to the game Arsenal were showing in the tables as the sixth best performing team away from home while Bradford were 18th in effectiveness at home. Everything pointed to an away win – or at least a draw.

It was all the more surprising as this was also the time when the city of Bradford started to move from being a club with two 1st division teams to a club with two third division teams – in the space of six years.

On 23 December the Government of Ireland Act was finally granted the Royal Asset, partitioning the island into two segments each with its own Parliament, and each with a measure of home rule.

The traditional games over Christmas now meant Arsenal had a chance to recover from the unexpected defeat to Bradford and this they duly did by beating Everton away 4-2, having been 2-1 down at half time. Prior to the game the clubs sat 3rd and 11th in the League and Everton had won 5, drawn 4 and lost just one of their home games. Arsenal had still only won two away games, drawing four and losing four. Arsenal were maintaining their position as 9th in the League. The only negative note struck was the fact that Pagnam was injured although he recovered in time for the next game.

As for present giving on this day of the year I can’t find reports of what the leading presents were for children at this time, but 1920 was the year that Meccano introduced their first Hornby clockwork train set with the Gauge 0 model railway. I suspect quite a few of these were bought – at least by families that could afford them.

On 26 December there were no league matches since Boxing Day fell on a Sunday, but there was one game that became famous, as Dick Kerr’s Ladies F.C. drew the largest-ever crowd to attend a women’s match: 53,000 spectators at Goodison Park for a game against St. Helen’s Ladies. The attendance was undoubtedly expanded because it was not just a Boxing Day match when factories were closed, but also a day when there were no League matches being played.

Back with Arsenal, there was thus a lot of positive feeling for the return game with Everton on 27 December, but it ended in a 1-1 draw in front of 40,000 at Highbury.

It meant that at the end of the year the table looked like this with London’s three teams highlighted.

Pos

Team

P

W

D

L

F

A

GAvg

Pts

1

Burnley

21

13

5

3

43

17

2.529

31

2

Bolton Wanderers

22

10

7

5

44

28

1.571

27

3

Liverpool

21

10

6

5

38

21

1.810

26

4

Newcastle United

21

11

4

6

36

22

1.636

26

5

Manchester City

21

11

4

6

35

27

1.296

26

6

Middlesbrough

21

11

4

6

33

27

1.222

26

7

Everton

23

9

8

6

35

32

1.094

26

8

Tottenham Hotspur

21

10

4

7

49

30

1.633

24

9

Arsenal

21

8

8

5

32

27

1.185

24

10

Manchester United

21

9

6

6

36

31

1.161

24

11

Aston Villa

22

10

4

8

39

37

1.054

24

12

Blackburn Rovers

21

7

7

7

32

28

1.143

21

13

Preston North End

21

8

4

9

34

30

1.133

20

14

West Bromwich Albion

20

6

8

6

25

31

0.806

20

15

Sunderland

21

6

7

8

26

34

0.765

19

16

Chelsea

21

6

7

8

22

34

0.647

19

17

Bradford City

20

6

6

8

29

28

1.036

18

18

Huddersfield Town

22

7

4

11

18

27

0.667

18

19

Sheffield United

24

3

8

13

18

45

0.400

14

20

Oldham Athletic

21

3

7

11

23

54

0.426

13

21

Bradford Park Avenue

21

4

3

14

25

46

0.543

11

22

Derby County

21

1

9

11

14

30

0.467

11

Thus the year in League football terms came to an end, as the British Empire reached its largest point covering 33 million square miles and with a population of 423 million people. From here on it was downhill all the way. This year also saw the all-time highest annual number of live births in the country, reaching over 1.1 million. The 2016 level was around 700,000.

Here are the details of the Arsenal games for December 1920.

Date

Opposition

H/A

Res

Score

Crowd

Pos

04/12/1920

Chelsea

A

W

2-1

60,000

9

11/12/1920

Chelsea

H

D

1-1

50,000

9

18/12/1920

Bradford City

A

L

1-3

20,000

9

25/12/1920

Everton

A

W

4-2

35,000

9

27/12/1920

Everton

H

D

1-1

40,000

9

This article comes from the series “Henry Norris at the Arsenal”

Perhaps the most popular element in the Norris story is that of Arsenal’s promotion to the first division in 1919. The most complete review of this, which puts right the numerous misunderstandings of the events of that year appears, and most importantly cites contemporary articles and reports, such as the minutes of the FA meeting where the promotion was confirmed, and the reports in local papers thereafter, here in these two sets of articles…